rotten cherries
by my best enemy
Summary: neither of them ever eat cherry pie again / astoria and daphne / written for pearl's "sweet tooth" challenge at the SC


A/N: Daphne and Astoria's mother left them when they were still babies. They have never met her, nor do they know what she looks like. Their father is a heavy drinker, and they usuallly have to take care of themselves.

**...**

_her feelings she hides_

_her dreams she can't find_

_she's losing her mind_

_she's falling behind_

('nobody's home' - avril lavigne)

**...**

This is a story of broken dreams, of rejection, of lost innocence. This is the story of two sisters and a cherry pie.

**...**

When Daphne is seven and Astoria six, they find a cookbook, hidden in the back of their kitchen closet. Most of the recipes are, in their opinion, rather disgusting, but there is one for cherry pie. They've never eaten cherry pie before.

So Daphne "borrows" their father's wand and they Summon cherries from their Muggle neighbour's garden and bake a cherry pie.

And when they try it, they decide, right there on the spot, that it is the most delicous thing they have ever tasted.

**...**

They start baking cherry pies all the time. When they're sad, when they're happy, when their father drinks too much and yells. They sneak their father's money to buy the ingredients. Pretty soon they don't even need the cookbook.

Somehow, it's special for them.

**...**

On the day before Daphne leaves for Hogwarts, she bakes Asoria a special pie, with rasberries mixed in with the cherries and I'LL MISS YOU! spelled out on the top.

But Astoria cries anyway, great shuddering sobs, all night long.

Daphne hugs her very tight. She understands.

She wouldn't want to be shut up alone in this dark, cramped house either.

**...**

Daphne likes Hogwarts. She likes her classes and the teachers and the other girls.

She also likes the house eleves' cherry pies. She's never tell Astoria, but they taste better than the homemade ones.

But during the holidays, when she goes back to Astoria, she bakes cherry pies with her and pretends they still taste delicious.

**...**

It's a happy day when Astoria leaves for Hogwarts. She's finally free, free of the small, musty house, free of her angry, depressed father.

And she's with Daphne again.

The two of them sit together on the train. They had made a pie the night before and they eat it for lunch.

It's good to be together again.

**...**

Astoria doesn't like the cherry pie at school that much. Somehow, the ones that she and Daphne bake together seem to taste better.

But Daphne thinks it's great, so Astoria is quiet.

Sisters shouldn't fight.

**...**

Daphne hates her 7th year. She hates the way the Carrows try to teach them, she hates Crabbe and Goyle's cruelty, she hates whatever thing Draco is doing, she hates everything.

And she's scared. She scared of You-Know-Who and of Snape. And she know that the others, the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, have some sort of resistance group going on, but Slytherins aren't supposed to be brave, so she stays out of it and does her best not to hurt anyone.

Once, she tries to eat some cherry pie, to remind herself of those carefree days, but the red of the cherries remind her of blood and she feels sick and stops.

**...**

Astoria's only 16, and she just wants to run away, far far away.

One day, she finds a little first-year in the hallway, crying with gouge marks on his arms.

She remembers her first year and how happy it was and she just wants to scream at how unfair it is.

But she still eats cherry pie, because it comforts her somehow.

**...**

She's so in love and it's absolutely _killing_ her. Draco is all she ever thinks about. He's handsome and responsible and respectful. And Daphne warns her _he'll never love you, he's got a heart of stone_, but Astoria keeps hoping.

But every time she visits him, every time she writes him a letter, every time she goes to a party and he's there, every time, she gets a cold, polite rejection.

And she bakes cherry pies, to cheer herself up, but they start getting tasteless after a while.

**...**

Daphne doesn't want this. She doesn't want this at all. When she imagined marriage, she imagined _love_. She didn't imagine Blaise, who may be handsome and rich, but who doesn't love her. And she doesn't love him, not one bit.

But that's the problem with arranged marriages. They don't involve trivial things like _feelings_, they involve money and scheming grandparents who want their granddaughters to marry eligible, wealthy bachelors.

This marriage hasn't even started yet, but she is already suffocating.

She makes one last cherry pie, but it tastes so _flat_, so _stale_, so..._cold_, that she spits it out and begins to cry.

**...**

Astoria is alone and pregnant. She's got no one, no one at all. Draco literally shut the door in her face. And now she's got a little boy growing in her stomach and nothing but a badly-paying job at Madame Malkin's and a dingy little flat.

And she has absolutely _no idea_ what to do.

So she bakes a cherry pie. And maybe it's just her pregnancy hormones acting up, but it's horrible, _nauseating_. The cherries are disgustingly sweet, the dough is black and burned. The whole thing is a mess and she ends up throwing it all away.

**...**

Neither of them ever eat cherry pie again.


End file.
